Shooting Panoramics in York with Candido 800 & a Bronica SQ-A
Full of old buildings, it’s worth getting up high to get a different perspective of York and the new walkway at Clifford’s Tower is the perfect place to do this. 1/250s 80mm F5.6 with polariser.
A great feature of a modular system like the Bronica SQ-A is its interchangeable film backs. Not only do you not need to finish the previous roll before you shoot something else, but you can also switch formats to suit your needs. I don’t own a 6x4.5 film back but I do own a 135W panoramic back which I’ve talked about in previous blogs. It’s extra handy being able to shoot with 35mm film given there are many more options than 120 roll film. Last year saw the British company Candido come to the market as an alternative to CineStill for re-rolled Kodak motion picture films. Initially available in only 24 exposure rolls like the one shot in this blog, you can now purchase them in full sized 36 exposure cannisters.
York train station at night. Re-rolled Kodak Vision film really seems to come to life when there’s lots of bright artificial light. 1/2s 80mm F5.6.
I wasn’t expecting to encounter Bumblebee and a posse of stormtroopers during my trip but goes to show it’s always good to have a camera handy for any situation. 1/2s 50mm F5.6.
In addition to the photos I took in 6x6 which you can see in last week’s blog I loaded up a roll of Candido 800 in my 135W film back to have another go at shooting either in low light on a tripod or handheld in daylight. It wasn’t a format that suited shooting inside buildings, so I reserved this for street scenes and for the cars I was photographing as part of my work trip. A good test of both the set-up and the film given the diverse scenarios and lighting conditions. Interestingly there doesn’t seem to be any information on the website or the box about the colour balance, but it does seem to be shifted more to the cool end similar to CineStill 800T.
Clifford’s Tower, I felt this image worked better than the 6x6 one from the previous blog. There’s more focus on the tower and a better sense of scale with people to the left. 1/250s 50mm F5.6 with polariser.
York Post, these old buildings are more remnants of York Castle. 1/250s 50mm F5.6 with polariser.
Large parts of the city walls are still standing for visitors to walk along, it’s history goes back to Roman times. 1/250s 50mm F5.6 with polariser.
I’ll admit that I was a little disappointed with the results. Being an ISO 800 film I wasn’t expecting there to be oodles of detail but I did feel the final images were a bit lacking in comparison to the rolls of CineStill 800T I’d photographed in the past. However, that’s almost certainly due to the difference in lenses and not due to the film. One thing to be aware of is that 35mm lenses tend to have the most resolving power given that they are to be used with the smallest (ordinary) format of film. As you get up into medium and then large format there is less need for lenses to be comparatively sharp as you gain resolution from the film size alone. I’d shot CineStill 800T using my more modern Nikon lenses on my F100 and as good as my Bronica glass is, these lenses from the 1980s and early 1990s probably don’t stack up against glass from the late 2000s and early 2010s with better coatings to boot.
I photographed three cars on this trip. The first was the MGB GT V8 that was on display to advertise this new version of the car at the Earl’s Court Motorshow back in 1970. The owner managed to borrow the special license plate that was on the car during the show more than fifty years ago. 1/500s 80mm F5.6 with polariser.
Second up was a supercharged MGB (four cylinder) that the owner had owned for more than forty years. 1/500s 80mm F4.0 with polariser.
The last car was an ever elegant Bentley S3 Flying Spur, a five door version of the famous continental body shape. 1/50s 80mm F5.6 with polariser.
Still, it was enjoyable coming up with composition ideas with this format, that I am still not that used to using. I don’t think I captured anything really spectacular on this roll, and I certainly wasn’t help by the ever-dull conditions, but at least I got some more experience shooting panoramas. I think my favourite shot is the one of Clifford’s Tower. This image works better than the 6x6 image from the previous blog, the framing here giving it a greater sense of its position on top of the hill with the people for scale. Another favoured image is of the two old cars by a canal, though it’s a pity the new car was parked so close and there was no way to crop it out.
The River Ouse may be the biggest river in town (quite literally) but smaller tributaries like the River Foss feed into them. I should have gone with a smaller aperture for a wider depth of field here. 1/250s 50mm F5.6 with polariser.
I was very pleased to have stumbled upon these old cars by a canal. Just a shame that the new Citroen Cactus was parked too close to the Beetle to crop it out. 1/250s 50mm F5.6 with polariser.
I definitely won’t be rushing back to shoot this film again for panoramas, though I would certainly be tempted in trying about Portra 800. Though perhaps certain shots with lots of bright artificial light at night could really bring this set-up to life. At the time I did also buy a couple of rolls of Candido 200 and perhaps loading up one of those to see how a lower ISO film performs could be a good idea. Generally, this is something you want to use on a tripod in any case so using a slower film is not much more of a hassle. Yes, you can handhold it like I did for a few of these shots, but as getting straight horizons is even more critical, it’s best to take the time and get it right. In the meantime, I just need to get out and use it more.
Looking down the River Ouse towards Bridge Street. Pretty much every major city with long histories was built on some kind of waterway. 1/250s 50mm F5.6 with polariser.
The sun setting behind Woodsmill Quay. Certainly not a bad part of the city to live or work in. 1/250s 50mm F5.6 with polariser.
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